Ever since the days of the thirteen American colonies, people have been using brooms and dustpans as part of their household equipment for cleaning floors, walks and porches here in the United States. As a consequence of the drudgery and cleaning and the inconvenience of storage of the broom separate from the dustpan, men and women have been searching for combined storage capability. This is shown through the history of the patent literature.
One early U.S. Pat. No. is that to Nash, 345,069 issued in 1886. Another is the patent of Bishop issued in 1892 and bearing U.S. Pat. No. 468,433. That patent employs a special clip mechanism for latching the broom to the dustpan.
Ormsby, U.S. Pat. No. 691,965 is an early model dustpan, in that the dust can emerge from the rear side of the pan as it is all open in the rear, there being no rear wall.
The Gross and Peterson which is intended for wall storage has a pair of wing members for enclosing the broom, U.S. Pat. No. 742,859;1903.
One other patent of which I am familiar is that of Curran U.S. Pat. No. 1,659,461, which is also open at the rear, and which invention employs a foot plate which when engaged forces a plate downwardly. The invention pertains primarily to the operation of the dustpan.
It is worthy of note that none of these patents employs the spatial relationship of broom to pan as I do. None of these, when in the storage position are intended for the handle to be up in the air on the broom, with the tips of the bristles pointed downwardly, and nesting into the narrowing or converging side walls of the pan, with the front part of the pan when stowed, facing upward and the back side and handles resting of the ground.
It is an object therefore to provide a new improved dustpan which resembles the conventional type we are familiar with today, but which has many novel features, is easy to use and is comparatively easy to manufacture.
It is one object of this invention to provide an improved dustpan which will lay flat against the wall when not in use.
It is another object to provide a dustpan which when stored, will not drop excess dirt on the floor of the storage zone.
It is yet another object to provide a dust pan which can easily cooperate with a standard broom for their combined storage.
It is a further object to provide a dust pan with an openable top portion, but which can be maintained in a secured position when desired and which prevents broom configuration distortion.
It is a yet further object to provide a new dust pan with a handle portion that rotates for easy storage.
These and other objects of the invention will become apparent upon a review of this specification in light of the accompanying drawings.